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No vacuum needed from a demonstration standpoint -- just hold it at Holloman as planned: counteracting Earth's 1G for the 180 seconds of the level II part of the competition generally demonstrates the Delta-v [wikipedia.org] necessary to go from the Moon's surface to orbital rendezvous (or the reverse).

This "rules explained" page [xprize.org] goes over this concept in a lot more detail, along with more interesting info on the competition.

Yeah, he has been doing this for several years - here is a slashdot story [slashdot.org] from 2001. Most of their major test flights have been covered here as well.

I got to see their test flight at the last X-Prize Cup in Alamagordo, NM. It's too bad they aren't joining those two events again. The actual launch was a ways off and you had to use binoculars to see much of anything but the exhaust. Regardless it was still cool to be there in person and to meet John Carmack, as well as talk to the other teams and hear about their different approaches. They also had all vehicles displayed up close (including Armadillo's when it wasn't being prepped for flight).

Actually, its not that they're not joining up, its that the XPC isn't happening this year as far as most people can tell.

I'd venture a guess that it'll be back next year though, and continue biannually in conjunction with the air show at the Air Force base there, although I'm not sure if we'll see a solo event again; if/when the whole private suborbital flight thing really takes off, I'd imagine it'll be shown off at things like Osh Kosh, where one of Diamandis's other ventures, Rocket Racing League, made i

There appear to be several teams that are competing for the "Level 1" prize, so if Armadillo doesn't complete that challenge it may be taken by at least one of the other teams. Yeah, I'd expect at least a couple of teams to at least show up with some hardware capable of making the requirements for the competition.

Considering the issues that Armadillo has gone through, I would have to say that the level 2 challenge is going to be a tough nut for any team to crack the first time through, although a couple ot

That is the wrong competition that you are noting here. Robert Cringely pulled out of the Google Lunar X-Prize.

This one is the "Lunar Landing Challenge", which is quite a bit different. The entire competition is to take place here on the earth, and in fact is sponsored by the U.S. Federal Government through NASA, even though the prize money is now being administered by the X-Prize Foundation. It is a part of the "Centennial Challenges" that received some brief funding from congress as a result of the success of the original sub-orbital X-Prize.

Unlike the Lunar X-Prize, the Lunar Landing Challenge is primarily to test what kind of hardware would be needed if you are to make a lunar landing, with vertical take-off and landing requirements that only use rocket powered propulsion. As a matter of fact, some of the Lunar Landing Challenge participants may be using some of their hard-won knowledge to help with the much tougher Lunar X-Prize, but it remains to be seen what will exactly happen in that case.

I kind of agree with Robert Cringely's rationale for pulling out of the Lunar X-Prize, as his #1 complaint was in regards to getting the rules nailed down and shifting policies on things like logo requirements on the lunar lander itself (the Lunar X-Prize is expected to actually go to the Moon), and the ability to put team sponsors onto the vehicle. The article that you linked to goes into much better detail than I can go into, and there were some deep issues that brought him to pull out.

From the title "2008 Lunar Lander Challenge Teams Announced", was I the only one who had to read that twice, because it sounded like in 2008, Teams were announced that were going to Challenge whether or not the Lunar Landing took place? heh